As it happens7:17The main scientists are full of a letter calling for « assaulting US science »
About 2,000 doctors, researchers and scientists You have signed an open letter Asking end of what they describe as the Trump Administration « wholesale trial in US science »
The letter, written by 13 disciplines scientists including medicine, climate sciences and economics, urges North -American to demand from their congress to protect funding and scientific integrity.
Signatories, all members of the national science, engineering and medicine academies, wrote that the Trump administration is « destabilizing this company with research funding, firing thousands of scientists, eliminating public access to scientific data and pressing researchers to alter or abandon their work for ideological reasons. »
Financing for Biomedical Research of National Health Institutes (Nih), which supports more than 300,000 scientists, was reduced by billions of dollars.
Environmental sciences have also been oriented, with More than 1,000 scientists and other employees will be fired of the Research Office of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The administration also has planned Reduce the labor force of the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration (Noaa) Up to 20 percent, which could seriously affect the weather forecast.
Dr. Steven Woolf was one of the signatories. He is a senior fellow at the American Progress Center and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. Talked As it happens Host to Nil Köksal on the letter.
What is really at stake right now?
The topic we deal with here is that the Trump administration’s policies have significantly degraded the functions of our Government (i) different agencies.
But the area we are concerned about as scientists is that there is basically a destruction of a lot of research, not only within the federal government, but also in the universities and research centers in the country.
The United States has invested for about 80 years in the creation of their research capacity.
In the weeks, the Trump administration incapacitated many of these functions.
We are see mass dismissals in the Department of Health and Human Services. What do you listen to your colleagues about what’s going on there?
The layoffs that occur today are apocalyptic in our field. These are the main agencies responsible for the health of the North -Americans and large amounts of workers who have spent their career trying to improve the health of the North -Americans are sent packaging.
There are those … that they would say that there is a swollen bureaucracy, (this) these things need to be trimmed, so they are happy to feel what they think is happening and think that the amount given to the research, like yours and the investigation of your colleagues, has been too much over the years. What would you want to say?
I think there is a fair argument that there are inefficiencies in many of these agencies.
But the way we approach inefficiencies is a much more directed approach. My analogy is if you have a car engine that works inefficiently, you usually take it to a mechanic for a tune.
In this case, the thing is that they take a sled and obtain the engine, which does nothing to improve efficiency, and now the car is no longer working.
There has been very little attempt to improve the efficiency of these agencies. However, what has been done is simply to reduce them spectacularly and (that has it) made them basically dysfunctional.
I think it is important for listeners to understand that there are two pieces.
One is that these massive cuts are deactivating the spigot for research, so there is less money and staff available to do the research.
But the second part is censorship. This is where the government imposing ideological and political agendas to interfere with the research issues that scientists can research, what methods they can use, to do their studies and … the words they can use to report the results.
The very important principle of scientific independence that researchers of all world value are being threatened in this case.
Have you heard an answer or a reaction … that people are receiving this message?
It is a very polarized country right now.
When people like me are concerned about the management of the Trump administration, there is a large sector of the population that is not satisfied with these types of comments.
But on the other hand, there is a great sector of Americans who appreciate the fact that someone is talking.
There is a climate of fear in many of these research and universities institutions where leadership is in a very difficult place and is not talked about, trying to keep its head and prevent the administration dislike because the Government is placing a lot of financial and legal pressure at universities and other research institutions.
As a result, there has been a silence related to the community and the scientific community.
Here in Canada … Stories about teachers and researchers who leave the United States towards Canada. Are you waiting for more of your colleagues to leave your country for ours?
I think so. I think it’s happening very quickly. I personally know the colleagues who do it. It is true for experienced researchers who feel the need to leave the country to continue doing independent scientific research.
But it is also happening for our young people who are interested in a degree in sciences that change their mind about going to the postgraduate school in the United States and seeking something else for their education.
What do you think will change the minds of people who disagree with you right now?
The only way the current impulse will change is when the north -American audience begins to appreciate tangible as it affects them.
Whenever it is a very distant and remote problem of a Washington agency, DC, it is easy to reject them -as irrelevant political news and marginalize the scientists or other workers of these agencies or researchers from universities who consider the elite and disconnected from everyday life.
But when you get home, when your child cannot have the care they receive, when medical errors in your hospital increase because the agency that would be responsible for improving the results no longer exists, and when health trends such as the mental health crisis exist among young Americans and other important threats to health and well-being are promotion due to these policies, a hope that can be sufficient to register with the general public.
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